Shortage of truck drivers causes land freights to Jordan to double

05 October 2012 05:29[Source: ICIS news]

SINGAPORE (ICIS)--A shortage of truck drivers has increased land transport rates from United Arab Emirates (UAE) to ?xml:namespace>Jordan by more than double, driving up offers of polyolefins resins to the East Mediterranean (East Med) region, industry sources said late on Thursday.

The cost of trucks lifting from UAE to Jordan for polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) resins are typically priced at $60.00-70.00/tonne (€46.20-53.90/tonne), but the shortage of drivers resulted in land transport costs to surge to as high as $145/tonne, they said.

Most truck drivers for this UAE-Jordan route are Syrians, market sources said.

“We do not know why there is a sudden disappearance of these drivers, but this is really pushing up the offers for resins,” a Jordanian trader said.

“The political crisis in Syria has been ongoing for more than a year, and land freights have consequently increased from Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to East med region,” a GCC-based polyolefins producer said, adding that with a shortage of truck drivers now, the prices of resins have hiked up.

Late on 4 October, offers for high density PE (HDPE) film were at $1,490-1,550/tonne DEL (delivered) Jordan for October delivery, up by $50-70/tonne from September settlements.

“The jump in land freights is just part of the many bullish factors driving resins prices up,” a separate GCC-based polyolefins maker said.

Most players said they are not clear how long this shortage of drivers will last.

“We are really unsure whether our parcels will reach on time, so we just have to keep buying to maintain our supply chain,” a Jordanian converter said.